On Wednesday July 18, 2018, 6:00pm-7:30pm, the Museum of Performance + Design will commemorate 50 years of San Francisco dance history with a FREE outreach party celebrating the launch of our new site, Captured Live: Fifty Years of Bay Area Dance Photography. The event will include a presentation of the website and remarks from some of the dancers and artists featured in the project. Light refreshments will be provided.

Henrietta (Henri) Deming McDowell was the official photographer for the San Francisco Ballet, documenting nearly every ballet performed in that period of time. Promotional materials and souvenir programs often featured her photographs. Her photography and articles about ballet and Lew Christensen appeared in numerous publications. The collection at MP+D includes negatives, mini positives, slides, loose and bound black and white and color prints of varying sizes, and personal papers consisting of news clippings, manuscripts, publications, correspondence, and awards. Noted dancers and choreographers featured in the collection include Lew Christensen, Michael Smuin, Carlos Carvajal, Robert Gladstein, Sally Bailey, Anita Paciotti, Tomm Ruud, Betsy Erickson, Val Caniparoli, and Jocelyn Vollmar. For more information and to access the finding aid, click here.

Chester Kessler was a student of Minor White’s photography program at the California School of Fine Arts. During the late 1950s and the early 1960s, he photographed and documented performances of postmodern dancer Anna Halprin and San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop. His collection at MP+D contains approximately 1,500 photographs, negatives and transparencies of important dancers and dance companies in works choreographed by notables such as George Balanchine, Ruth Beckford, Carlos Carvajal, Lew Christensen, Anna Halprin, and Welland Lathrop. For more information and to access the finding aid, click here.

Robert J. (Bob) McLeod was a San Francisco-based photographer. He worked for years at the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle. McLeod was married to photographer Beth Witrogen, whose photographic work is also included in this collection. The collection at MP+D includes photographic prints, negatives, slides, programs, and press clippings from the Examiner and Chronicle featuring his work. Notable dancers and choreographers reflected in his collection include Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ethan Stiefel, and Desmond Richardson, as well as several prominent dancers and choreographers who worked with companies such as San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. For more information and to access the finding aid, click here.

Katherine Kahrs is a teacher, painter, and photographer. During the 1980s, Kahrs served as an official photographer for the Pacific Dance Center and the Palo Alto Dance Center, thus compiling an important visual record of their contributions to dance education. She also photographed performances by such groups as the Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Eiko + Koma, Margaret Wingrove Dancers, the Sugano School of Ballet, the New Dance Co., Dancers' Repertory Theatre, the Golden Gate Ballet, Footwork, the San Francisco Jazz Dance Co., and the San Francisco Moving Co. Many individuals affiliated with these dance groups are also featured in the collection. The collection includes slides, negatives, photographic prints as well as programs and related promotional materials featuring Kahr's photography. For more information and to access the finding aid, click here.

The first public workshop performance of The Latin Quarter: Maclovia Ruiz and the Missing Beat by Alejandro Murguía will take place on Thursday, June 28 at the new Brava Cabaret in San Francisco. Developed in collaboration with MP+D as part of its Archive Live series, this year's performance / installation is inspired by the career of dancer Maclovia Ruiz (1910-2005) and San Francisco's Latin Quarter.

At one time pre-1950s the Latino community was based in North Beach and because of the numerous nightclubs in the area featuring top name Latino performers and Latin American bands, the neighborhood was known as The Latin Quarter, a center of bohemian art and culture. It was this bohemian ambience that would attract a new generation that would later be known as The Beats.

Out of that artistic milieu of the then barrio of North Beach would emerge Maclovia Ruiz, an exceptional dancer of Mexican origin who would eventually reach national and international acclaim and perform with such dance luminaries as Adolph Bolm of the Ballets Russes and San Francisco Opera Ballet, George Balanchine, and the great Spanish flamenco maestro Antonio Ruiz Solar.

The performance / installation -- reminiscent of the 1950s -- will feature the career of Maclovia Ruiz with original material from MP+D's collection, as well as a narration by Murguía, recounting the history of Ruiz, the Latin Quarter and the missing beat of San Francisco.

In conjunction with San Francisco Ballet's presentation of John Neumeier's Nijinsky performed by the National Ballet of Canada, the Museum of Performance + Design will celebrate the 110th anniversary of the launch of Nijinsky's career with a special display in the Reading Room at our new location.

The Board of the Museum of Performance + Design takes great pleasure in announcing that Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Michael Leibert Artistic Director Tony Taccone will be presented with its 2018 San Francisco Arts Medallion for his outstanding leadership in the arts on Monday, March 26, 2018, 5:30pm-8:00pm, at The Battery in San Francisco. The San Francisco Arts Medallion was created in 2005 by the Museum of Performance + Design (MP+D) to recognize those individuals whose leadership, action, and generosity have benefited the cultural life of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the 20 years Tony Taccone has served as the artistic director for Berkeley Rep, the company has presented more than 77 world, American, and West Coast premieres and sent 32 shows to New York, two to London, and one to Hong Kong. Prior to working at Berkeley Rep, Taccone served as artistic director of Eureka Theatre. While at the Eureka, he commissioned Tony Kushner’s legendary Angels in America and co-directed its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. This year, Taccone will direct Berkeley Rep's production of Angels in America, which opens on April 17.

THE EVENT

"This year, the event will be an extraordinary convergence of the artistic and political and Tony Taccone’s brilliant touch on the culture of our time,” says MP+D Board President and Event Patron Chair Pattie Lawton. Honorary Chair Mark Leno will join us for the evening which will include tributes to Tony, displays of original material from MP+D’s collection including the iconic wings, designed by Sandra Woodall, from the original Eureka theatre production, and Tony in conversation with designer Ken Fulk.

Proceeds from the event benefit the preservation and educational programs at MP+D. For additional details including VIP level attendee benefits and costs, please click here. Please click here for the full press release. For more information, please call Kirsten Tanaka at 415-741-3531 or email info@mpdsf.org.

All Over Sound is taking the public through an exploration of sound in performance with a series of events featuring the work of visiting artists Latifa Medjdoud, Haco, and warrencrow+warren-crow in collaboration with local artists and in dialogue with the site and the collection of the Museum of Performance + Design.

In winter and spring 2016, The Museum of Performance + Design collaborated with the San Francisco theater collective The Collected Works to develop and perform a new site-responsive dramatic performance based on texts, images, recordings and more from our archive.

Preserving San Francisco's 20th c. Musical Landscape is an archival/engagement project that preserves and makes accessible for broad public access 234 linear feet of materials from five major 20th c. musical archives in our collection.